Sunday, October 21, 2007

A black police leader has reignited controversy in one of the most sensitive areas of British policing by suggesting that more people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched to tackle violent crime.

Keith Jarrett, president of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), disclosed that in a speech this week he will ask the Government and Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to consider increasing stop-and-searches among black people to reduce the kind of shootings which have claimed the lives of another two teenagers in the past week.

The NBPA has long raised questions about the disproportionately high number of black people stopped and searched by police.

Mr Jarrett said he would not be signalling a change in policy in a speech in Bristol this week, but was reflecting the views put to him by members of the black community.

He told The Observer: “From the return that I am getting from a lot of black people, they want to stop these killings, these knife crimes, and if it means their sons and daughters are going to be inconvenienced by being stopped by the police, so be it.

Read the whole thing here... and just imagine the Sharpton-Jackson firestorm if this had occurred in the US. But in the UK, it seems that stopping black on black crime has been deemed more important than "appearances". Proof that our own federal government could learn a thing or two from our cousins in the UK.